Being Jewish in Hawaii

I grew up with Jewish Standard Time. That’s the way most Jewish social events don’t ever start on time. If you tell people to come at 7 pm, they show up around 7:20 and you don’t get started until after 7:30.

People have busy lives with jobs and kids and responsibilities. They try to fit in as much as they can. If  Synagogue life cannot be at the center of their lives, at least it is a part. They will get there when they get there and do what they can.

Then I moved to Hawaii. Here they call it Hawaiian Time. Same concept. Most things start late, but for slightly different reasons. Hawaii is “Laid Back.” Not in a lazy sort of way, but with grace and ease. What’s the hurry? We have plenty of time. Just as the tide rolls in, so do the people. And then they stay.

And then there’s being Jewish in Hawaii.

I recently heard the combination of  Jewish Standard Time and Hawaiian Time referred to as “Jewaiian Time”–a powerful combination–certainly in terms of scheduling.

With these two cultural idiosyncrasies working together, it is almost completely impossible for anything to start as scheduled.

Luckily, they create a compelling synergy. The laid back nature of the island culture has definitely had an effect on the local Jewish Community, softening an underlying edge that I might have felt in other places.

Some might come a bit late, programs and meetings may not begin exactly on time, but nobody minds and they certainly stay, transforming our Shul on Oahu into at true Beit Knesset, place of assembly, gathering place.

It’s this sort of “Go with the flow” kind of lifestyle that makes being Jewish in Hawaii such a unique experience, certainly one worth writing about.